This invention relates to systems and methods for managing bookbinding consumables.
Today, a variety of different bookbinding systems can deliver professionally bound documents, including books, manuals, publications, annual reports, newsletters, business plans, and brochures. A bookbinding system generally may be classified as a commercial (or trade) bookbinding system that is designed for in-line manufacturing of high quality volume runs or an in-house (or office) bookbinding system designed for short xe2x80x9con-demandxe2x80x9d runs. Commercial bookbinding systems generally provide a wide variety of binding capabilities, but require large production runs (e.g., on the order of thousands of bindings) to offset the set-up cost of each production run and to support the necessary investment in expensive in-line production equipment. Office bookbinding systems, on the other hand, generally involve manual intervention and provide relatively few binding capabilities, but are significantly less expensive to set up and operate than commercial bookbinding systems, even for short on-demand production runs of only a few books.
In general, a bookbinding system collects a plurality of sheets (or pages) into a text body (or book block) that includes a spine and two side hinge areas. The bookbinding system applies an adhesive to the text body spine to bind the sheets together. A cover may be attached to the bound text body by applying an adhesive to the side hinge areas or the spine of the text body, or both. The cover of a typical commercial soft cover book generally is attached to the text body spine. The covers of hardcover books and some soft cover xe2x80x9clay flatxe2x80x9d books, on the other hand, typically are attached to the side hinge areas of the text body and are not attached to the text body spines (i.e., the spines are xe2x80x9cfloatingxe2x80x9d).
The invention features systems and methods of managing consumables used in a bookbinding system.
In one aspect of the invention, a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, and a processor is configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more bookbinding consumables based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator.
Embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features.
The processor preferably is configured to compute estimates of inventory levels for one or more consumables based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The processor may be configured to place an order with a remote consumables supplier based upon the computed inventory level estimates.
The processor may be configured to compute an average book size for books produced over a period of time or an average production rate for books produced over a period of time, or both. In some embodiments, the processor is configured to compute adjustments for one or more operating parameters of the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The processor also may be configured to compute adjustments for one or more consumable product configuration parameters based upon the obtained usage information.
The processor may be disposed at a location remote from the bookbinding system and may be coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator by a communication link. The processor may be configured to transmit the computed usage statistics to a display.
A memory device may be configured to store usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The memory device may be mounted to a consumable plug-in cartridge housing. In one embodiment, the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain an indication of a length of solid sheet adhesive remaining within a plug-in cartridge housing of an adhesive dispenser disposed within a receptacle of the bookbinding system.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description, including the drawings and the claims.